

3aop Helton 


^''^M^,:.^^M 







Class ^£^sEJS 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 



YOUTH'S PILGRIMAGE 



YOUTH'S 
PILGRIMAGE 



ROY HELTON 




THE POET LORE COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS^ BOSTON 



Copyright, 1915, by Roy Helton 



All Rights Reserved 



^^3^' 



It 



Thb Gorham Prkss, Boston, U. S. A. 



JlIN 18 1915 
©CIA403 426 



YOUTH'S PILGRIMAGE 



YOUTH'S PILGRIMAGE 

The mist of morning like a dream spun prayei 

Skeined in the sleep of flowers, stirred to greet 

The trembling hope of dawn ; the star fraught air 

Grew vocal in low tenderness of meek 

High anthems, plaintive utterance of birds 

Pleading for pity with no want of words 

To Light, their fiery lord. And lo, the cheek 

Empyrean, at their psalm did throb and thrill ; 
The sun crept up; wisp clouds like fire, rolled 
Faint crimson scud of heaven to crown the hills: 
And herald hierarchs winging, flush with gold. 
Flamed day into her glory. In her bower 
Fronting the sunrise in the sheerest tower 
That topped the spires and every glittering hold 

Of Childhood's habitation, Rosabel 

Rose timidly and thrust the rustling shade 

Of silken curtains wide: a nimbus fell 

Sheen on her sunny hair that stirred and strayed 

Down her white shoulders to her pulsing side, 

Warmi in the gush of summer. Loath to hide 

These beauties from the day their tendrils played 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



Flashing among the nimble moats. Agaze 
Over wide crimsoning meadows to the sea 
Her eyes were tranced with beauty, and the maze 
Of shadowy lanes teased her brown feet; each tree 
Called with inviting arms, and choral song 
Made lovely every leaf. She paused not long, 
But to each window stealing wistfully 

Gazed out one moment: lo, a forest dim 
Huddled in numberless gloomy hills did run 
Endlessly to the south and vapors grim 
Swung heavily on the treetops, where the sun 
Pierced not at hottest noonday. Toward the West 
And North, above a long white wall, there rest 
Warm quivering mists of everlasting dawn. 

"Oh grim consuming world, thy mysteries 
Of linked and various metaled days, enchain 
My soul," she cried, "Thy heavy mists that rise 
From bleeding embers of youth sunk and slain, 
Lure me from this too calm, too lucid air. 
To seek, with him, thy gloom, thy chill despair, 
To whirl in stormy passion and to dare 
Thy frantic joy that is the kin of pain! 



8 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



"I fear thee, yet I draw apace upon thee: 
Shudder and yet grow nigh thee day by day; 
And love that binds my heart and fate that won me 
Claim sacrifice and barter no delay. 
Oh Childhood, thou art dying, thou art sped. 
In him I love thou liest white and dead — 
A little corpse with roses wound and wed, 
Laid by moist April in the lap of May!" 

Then through the toss of clouds one moment gleam- 
ed 
Far glimpses of quick light like the flash of wings, 
And round her tower swept solemn song that seemed 
Missioned with memory of soul wanderings 
In the fair elder regions beyond birth. 
Oh song! How very seldom in the dearth 
Of human hearts, thy sacred summonings 

Stir the old breathless dreams that liberate 
The soil mewed spirit to one moment's winging! 
How silent is thy consort as we wait 
Nightly below the stars; how in the singing 
Of Merle and Skylark do we vainly hope 
For note of thy revealing voice, or grope 
Where dim cathedral's lonely spark is swinging, 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Or stoop in candled holiness to prayer 

Yet find thee silent still: thy voice doth cease 

To lord earth's solitudes and to the air 

Of hilltops hath grown strange; thy tones increase 

Like organ notes, these days, mid murk and moil 

Where one soul thrills with glory of its toil, 

Or hungered child hath joy, who needs not least. 

Yet in her heart thy calling voice did rise, 
Shrill as the morning pean of the lark. 
And mist and sorrow dazzled from her eyes 
Like night's cloak touched by dawn's enkindling 

spark. 
"Come woe!" she cried, "Or pain, if pain must be. 
And blinding passions cast thy pall on me; 
Burn me or chain with chains, I still am free 
While there is love to lamp me through the dark!" 

Then down from her tower she swept with a heart 

that was song, 
And the ferns and the flowers were mad for the 

flash of her feet 
They fondled the grass like the sunbeams aflush at 

the dawn 
In dalliance with the clover's dewy sweet; 



lO 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



But her lover had waited and watched till his eyes 

were dim; 
As she came a shroud of sorrow swept over him : 
With a smile that was sadder than tears did he turn, 

did he greet 

Her kiss, her joy, her pity, yea her fear; 
And cried, "Ah might I see thee ever young 
And everlasting fair as now, and hear 
Thy greeting like a waterfall whose tongue 
Utters continual music to all hours ! 
But I have lost the favor of life's flowers 
No songs of Joy may from my lips be flung." 

"What, do you hold my kisses in disdain?" 
Cried Rosabel, "And stand aloof from me?" 
"My kiss upon your brow would print a stain," 
He answered, "That might not assoilzied be. 
My love's fair tree is girt by dreams that cling 
Like foul vines round the leafy slumbering 
Of reaching oaks, and make a loathsome thing 
Of mine own flesh, when I walk forth with thee." 



II 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



"Dreams?" "I have had them too." "But such as 

mine 
Poison the very stock they feed upon. 
Thy love," he cried, "I held a thing divine — 
Closer than seeping showers or the sun, 
To that unseen but throbbing vital heart 
That all ensanguined beauties doth impart 
To things yet fresh in being or scarce begun. 

Last night I dreamed of you, dreamed that you came. 
And called me softly through the summer night; 
Came like a brown wren singing on my name 
Until the warm air trembled with delight: 
The warm air trembled when my little maiden 
Came like an elf with wild flowers overladen; 
The stars had never seen so sweet a sight. 

But I — what did I then ? I need be brave 
To speak the words that must make love grow less, 
Yet should I prove Love's renegade to have 
On old false terms thy heart's young tenderness: 
I cannot see thee through familiar eyes 
For blinding passions in my soul arise 
Like mists that in the deep September skies 
Veil dying summer's languid loveliness. 



12 



Youth*s Pilgrimage 



Your arms that came around me in the dark 
Begot a sudden rapture In my dream — 
A joy — pure joy it seemed — a sudden spark 
Falling sky deep from an ungathered gleam 
Of passion burning and untempered fire; 
But sudden in its stead sprang dark desire 
Groping in night without one starry beam: 

Desire, blind, not knowing what it sought. 
But hot within the bliss of thy warm arms: 
To hold thee flesh to flesh, till life and thought 
Were crushed in the enfolding of thy charms: 
To let my lips and fingers find a nest 
Upon the swaying summer of thy breast 
And feel thee tremble deep to strange alarms. 

To let my hands sweep round thy gracile thighs 
To print the scarlet stain of kisses there" — 
"Enough!" cried Rosabel, whose fluttering eyes 
Sought shelter in the garment of her hair. 
She trembled at the tempest in her brain ; 
Searching for words, found but a calling pain : 
Sought virtue that was snow and found deep stain 
Crimson upon cold lips grown sudden fair. 



13 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Fear called, but like the wail of driven fire 

Fanned till the fanning wind is drunk and quelled, 

His passion overmastered her desire. 

As rivers from a sluggish fountain welled 

Spread warmly as they drift against the sea; 

And yet her eyes in downcast modesty 

Faltered as though toward tears: right maidenly 

A blush stole where her bosom sank and swelled. 

"Thou slayest the immortal innocence of heart," 
She sighed, "for bounties brief that fade and fall." 
"Both soul and flesh I love," he cried, "Thou art 
Sheer loveliness, a soul in flower, a call 
From Heaven to quicken the dull heart of earth. 
Some rapture of God's spirit gave thee birth. 
Yea, thou art sister to the clouds, to all 

The brood that sunlight on the summer seas 
Begetteth for cool pillowing of air: 
Yet thou art fading too as one of these: 
Brief bridals now thy flushing beauties wear 
But darkness falls. Oh God! Even love seems 

lost — 
Sighed to the gulf of years like blown leaves tossed 
Seaward from branches clashing, cold and bare. 



U 



Youth*s Pilgrimage 



Oh drink earth's stoup of joy and if love die 
Let it die warmly! Come and I shall fold 
Its flower 'twixt thy breast and mine, to lie 
Garnered immortal hours from the cold, 
To quicken with perpetual birth each dawn, 
Grown older than the moon, until the wan 
And jealous starlight break to sunny gold 

Upon the morning hills. Have you not seen 
Two wrens like lovers wooing in the trees 
And watched them weave a nest of grey and green, 
A little house of summer and warm ease; 
And then their speckled eggs on the downy litter, 
And then the yellow mouths that reach and twitter, 
And last, faint fledglings fluttering in the breeze? 

Joy, innocence are there. Dear child, it seems 
The very flowers are more wise than we; 
The soundless passage of a summer dream 
Seems not less real and beautiful to me 
Than this blind maze wherein our lives entwine. 
Thy flowerlike frail form is not as mine. 
As though to some deep purpose we combine 
Our various flesh in deathless unity." 



15 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



She trembled as he spoke — trembled as one 
That feels the breath of tempests or the sweep 
Of surging waters or the voiceless run 
Of time, drag down his life and may not weep 
The loss too dear for sorrow, but being brave 
Bends to the tempest or the searching wave, 
Then, first of all his days, tastes joys that lave 
His eyelids like cool summonings of sleep. 

Her heart cried, but her lips for shame were dumb, 
"Oh man, my life, my soul are thine to spend! 
Go, I will follow ; lead and I will come — 
Where hills are highest or dark waters bend 
Under the knees of mountains!" but he heard 
Not the faint whisper of that breathless word 
And cried at last, "Too long my life is penned 

In this deceiving realm where the fairest flowers 
Root in the deepest murk of earth. I go 
To search life's secrets mid the chastening showers 
Of cold and biting rain ; where shrill winds blow 
Wild trumpet to the lightnings and deep thunder 
Booms to the echoing crags: where earthquakes 

sunder 
The stolid hearts of mountains and the flow 

i6 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



Of streams hath moaning passion for the sea. 
The deep wood calls my feet and I grow fonder 
Of silence than of song. But now for thee 
The dance waits on the meadow. I shall wandei 
Along this stream down to the crimson gate 
Where through the distant siren voice of Fate 
Calls to forbidden ears, and there await 
Thy parting word." Her cheeks grew white, but 
wonder 

Died in her flashing eyes ere he had gone 

Lost in the flutter of leaves. The woodland delves 

Were tenantless, but on each upland lawn 

And on each mead that seaward slopes and shelves 

Young troups of boys were dancing to glad notes 

First fluttered from warm nests, in virgin throats 

Of maidens singing nooked like woodland elves. 

Lo! One all garlanded with yellow clover: 
Like great gold stars swarmed in a summer sky 
They lay amid her hair's dim beauty. Over 
Another's brow dark ivy leaves did try 
Soft touch to mend the pale perfection there. 
Young numerous loveliness, too loath, too rare 
For my rude quill to mar with earthen dye. 

17 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



To their bright choir came deep eyed Rosabel 
With measures strange to chide their merry singing: 
Chiming what consort round her tower did swell, 
To whose wild notes the nimble echoes ringing 
Raged to repentant silences. The sea 
Swept shoreward to be wooed and wonderingly 
Warded its stillness where no birds were winging. 

Deep in a covert mid the silent leaves 
Her lover lingered, till the chant was ended 
Melting in mazy murmur that receives 
New sinuous sweetness from warm paths it wend- 
ed— 
Dwelling in sunlight on the odorant airs, 
Drooping to earth down twenty twining stairs 
Among the boughs whose moaning it hath mended. 

The world, the sky were mute until the harp 
Of the wide hearkening hills rehearsed her numbers, 
Thrilling the earth's celled stillness with the sharp 
Sting of remembered labors lapsed in slumbers 
Too rathely reft. The descant of the sea 
Wakes in droned dreariment. The strutted bee 
Glutting with golden gain his flight encumbers. 



i8 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Then Philemon turned, sighing, "I can bear 

No old companions of my boyish mirth; 

No eyes to mark my stains; no heart to share 

My sorrows but the eyeless heart of earth. 

And Rosabel's. Oh may sweet pity find 

Love through my fault to keep her close and kind 

Until old love begets a second birth!" 

He burrowed down through delves of cool caress 

Into the silence of untrodden ways. 

Where trailing vines in futile tenderness 

Held his still neighborings with soft delays. 

And then before him rose the crimson gate 

Where he must rest till sunset and await 

His love, slow stealing through the purple haze. 

"Aye, if she come," he cried. Beyond the door 

That, like a ruby in dull sandstone set, 

Centered his eyes, there came a sullen roar 

Of countless marching multitudes, the fret 

Of battling ocean and the wail of tense 

And white fanged storm, and afterwards long 

silence. 
The listener stirred no breath till his brow was wet 



19 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



With feverish dew, and then he rose and flung 

Ajar the brazen dosel of the door, 

And on a dry turf sprang, knee deep among 

A realm of flowery sunsets. Lo! The floor 

Of this new region floated to the sea 

In waves of violet hillbrows, and the lea 

Lay purpled like calm waters far from shore, 

Attired in unnumbered loveliness: 
Clover and violet, robes of christening Spring, 
And asters dropped from Heaven's gate to bless 
Autumnal fervors fled. The seasons cling 
Dreamfully here with azure arms entwined 
Babe on the breast of mother, sleeping, vined 
By clouds that hover like an angel's wing. 

The little door slid shut without one sound ; 
He found no sign of it how hard he peered ; 
Only a grim grey wall that reached around 
Coldly, as something to be greatly feared. 
A twig snapped in the thicket, and he turned 
To greet a man in whose old eyes there burned 
Dim fires, that scarce enobled or endeared. 



20 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



"Alas, my son," he cried, ''You look too late! 
No hour spent returns ; no will can stem 
The marching tide of time. That little gate 
Is shut on Childhood's joys. Remember them 
But look for them no more. Here shalt thou find 
The elect whom mounting passions may not blind 
Nor lend false heart for strife or stratagem. 

"We are a kindly and a temperate race; 
A twilight folk, for I am one of these: 
We walk life's border and have skill to trace 
Afar, the fangs of serpent twining ease 
Sapping the scarlet from the lips of men: 
Afar — aye very far, my eyes can ken 
The myrmidons that battle and then cease, 

"The hosts that throb with passion and then cool, 

Cruel or sharp as jags of Arctic snow; 

The laboring monarch and the fatted fool, 

The great ones risen high by creeping low 

To kiss the feet of empire, or to shower 

Soft praises on the harlot of the hour 

To win one nod of favor ere they go. 



21 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



"We watch and smile but neither reap nor sow." 
A crowd of men and women through the vale 
Tripped by them as he spoke with footing slow; 
And some were simpering and some were pale^ — 
Smooth empty faces dull, but gently kind, 
Or dim and studious eyes, but all grown blind 
Alike to loveliness of bower or dale. 

"May I be one of ye?" cried Philemon, 
"And with ye drain life's rummer to the lees, 
To search the seepings whose corruptions run 
Toward death, and master birth's warm mysteries?" 
Some gnawed their fingers when he spake and some 
Simpered and others trembling and grown dumb 
Made show to turn aside their timorous eyes. 

The old man bit his beard and rumbled out, 
"Birth and begetting — shame of shames and sin 
Of hideous sins! Go seek some wanton rout 
In yonder forest where deeds shameless, win 
The thunder of deep curses from God's tongue, 
And there find answer. Shameless and so young!" 
And "Shameless," shrilled his crew in voices thin. 



22 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



He left them then and pulsed with easier breath 
To hear their sly sneers and contagious scorn 
Wane on the queasy wind; but even death 
And life partook this sin of being born! 
"The birds axe shameful then and the seeding 

flowers," 
He cried. "There seems no beauty in life's hours 
Save stars and moonlight and the purpling morn!" 

His heart denied his tongue, and long he stood 

Blended by inward lightnings, all amaze, 

Like a young doe far from its mothering wood 

While all the earth is smitten with the blaze 

Of hostile fire and disrooting storm, 

Then silence and sunlight: skies grown sudden 

warm 
And blighted beauty in familiar form. 
Fragrant and calling, through the chastened brays. 

The murmur of the waterfalls that leap 
Down from the land of Childhood to the sea, 
Commercing of its fragrance utters sleep 
Whose balmy pillowings and melodious plea 
Soothed the poor sated eyes. And there a mound 
Invited with soft bedding leaves, hedged round 
With fragrant pines. "I'll lie beneath some tree,'* 

23 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



He murmured, half a dream, "And watch the sun 
Turn Midas at the twilight." Ere he gained 
The hilltop, sleep forsook the web she spun 
To veil his eye's blue beauty. Wonder reigned 
Lone naiad then in all their watery deeps 
And in his fervid heart new kingdom keeps: 
For he hath clambered to the peak, hot veined 

To gulp the brimming bounty of the land 
At one unbreathing drain: the hills, the sea, 
The long white wall that girdled like a band 
The Tyrian plush of earth's fertility, 
And to the south, beyond the hills, the loom 
Of bleak and awful forests in whose gloom 
White sudden faces seemed to peer, and flee 

Deeper into their den of dark within. 

He mused, "Have I not seen some woodland thing: 

Hoar Sagittarian with bearded chin 

Through hazel copse the tear eyed fawn pursuing, 

Or brown haired Dryad starting from her tree 

Armful of golden missives, tremblingly 

Cast on the brook's face to advance her wooing? 



24 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Or was it one rare glint of sunlight claiming 
Warm nurture of a Maenad's tressy brow? 
Or was it some strange creature past my naming ? 
Even as he mused the neighboring hedges bow 
And part with timorous urge of rosy fingers; 
Then, faltering like a maiden bride who lingers 
To make more dear the purchase of her vow 

A woman came, veiled in a mist of blue 
Caught out of the young heavens to disguise 
The firm and rosy flesh, that flushing through 
Like mountain heads at dawn against the skies, 
Seemed builded out of sunlight and high air 
To woofs more cloud ensnaring and more rare; 
Above like sunrise streamed her golden hair. 
But there were velvet bands across her eyes. 

She gazed on him, and swaying as she stood, 
His eyes drank in the wonder of her form. 
Searching her gracious wealth of womanhood. 
Its loveliness and verdure, shyly warm. 
She caught the tribute of his eyes and said, 
"I am not of yon pale folk, living dead, 
That have no tongue for tasting sun or storm ! 



25 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



"I live where men are mighty, and the fresh 
And vital beauty of the earth has sway; 
Where spirit calls to spirit, and flesh to flesh; 
Where joy and pain and passion, sweep and sway 
The writhing hearts of men as storm sways trees 
That scarp the northern passage of the seas 
And bend and sing, yet grow more green and grey. 

"Our glory warm begetting, death and birth 

And all the sunny joys that lie between: 

Pain making deep the loveliness of earth; 

Eyes passion-fondling where blind peace hath been.'* 

"Tell me," he cried, "Is there no shame in this?" 

"No shame," she sighed, "Save where grim virtue 

is — 
Shame in no birth nor shame in any bliss 
That warms from smiles and dies into a kiss; 
If there be foulness speak when thou hast seen!" — 

Beyond the wide arms of the eastern wall 
Faint through the mellowing veil of evening mist 
A plumed tower rose divinely tall ; 
Like white spars meshed in ocean's amethyst 
It seemed to sway on piers too frail to bear 
Its burden, — like a cloud twixt earth and air; 
Frail scuds of vapor yellow like long hair 
Fell round the stains day's dying fervor kissed. 

26 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Lo on its side a gate of crimson fold 

Gave sudden passage to a streaming flood 

That pooled about the tower and unrolled 

The sunset sky sunk in a sea of blood. 

Like plumes of pines by hostile tempests driven, 

Like mountains by the taloned earthquake riven, 

Like ghosts that face the throne of God unshriven, 

The tower writhed and faltered where it stood; 

And then fled faltering through the oozy door 

A child white browed like one faint fluttering star 

Lured from the porch of Heaven, and then one more. 

With timorous rosy limbs and feet that were 

It seemed scarce mated to the rugged earth, 

All trembling at the tumult of their birth, 

And frail like angels that have flown too far. 

Then silence fell like sleep. The children fled 
Now, hillward finding savor of their striving: 
One only lingered, whom the honied head 
Of clover tempted oft to tasteful hiving: 
Nuzzling her lips to nibble cool delights 
And bounding o'er the grass in little flights 
To suck each sheaf reared for her shy depriving. 



27 



Youth^s Pilgrhnage 



Ah! She is gone and Philemon hath traced 
Along the wall the glimmer of her hair 
Gliding toward darkness like a moon erased 
Timelessly by great waters: then the bare 
Stark loveliness of even stirred toward sleep. 
The woman cried, "Night comes and thou must 

keep 
Vigilant eyelids, for dim Death doth creep 
Serpentwise through the trees and wintering air." 

Lo! His first victim comes: a gleam, a quiver 

Like white wings poising through the mazy sheaves 

Of larches denizened by doves; a shiver 

And toss of the low furze that clings and cleaves 

Writhen in timeless birth; a slender shape 

Pilloried with caught hair against the gape 

Of trembling branches — hair like autumn leaves 

Sun-mellowed a long harvest time: she starts 
Palsied with blinking terror at the light, 
Shakes her proud head until the bright strands part. 
Shrinks darkly, then bursts forth with sudden flight 
Footing now air, now flowers, with rosy flash 
Of slender frantic limbs. A dewy lash 
Hovereth like the weeping clouds of night 

28 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



That drench a glorious sunset. "She hath seen," 

He thought, "Eternal sorrows bud to jo}^; 

Her nights have mellowed with the lonely teen 

Of tears, and caught calm wisdom of the cloy 

And solitude of grief that weeping mars. 

Her eyes have drunken silence of the stars." 

Over the purple tod on high employ 

They guide ; she lifts and flies ; a door looms wide 
And gulps her like the reach of waiting arms. 
A bell booms thrice and lo! On every side 
Bent forms creep forth to welcome its alarms. 
The high trees sigh with universal breathing: 
Forth dart high breasted youths with myrtle wreath- 
ing 
Their brows, and ivy culled with woodland charms 

To crown a holiday. Wind towsled hair 

Back fluttered like pale languid flames; the sheen 

Of sunset played soft lightnings on thighs bare 

Above the trailing of their garments green. 

One maid, white fleshed in billowing beauty, bore 

HeedfuUy high a cup half drained. She wore 

A fillet of white roses, and between 



29 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



Each rose a whiter blossom of the tree: 
And after her another, then one more: 
Like eddies landward folding on the lea 
Of purple waters to the summoning shore 
Swept the tumultuous tide, and lo! The yawn 
Of that dark door hath sucked the fairest; on 
Whelmeth the tardy spindrift then, outpour 

Of queasy pools. With mulling lips they tarried 

And tossed complaining fingers to the sun, 

Beside hoar sires whose tottering haste they harried 

To barter for delay. The plea begun 

Spent querulously and the lips grew still — 

So passed they one by one, the fair, the ill, 

Sere shoots, lush younglings by one frost foredone, 

Lapsed sunlessly alike to little dooms. 

One Cometh last, aslant the craggy shore 

Paltering up the sea bank, with the blooms 

Of ocean ribboning his hair. The pour 

Of dribbling brine made patter on the leaves 

Where through he crooks his clammy way. He 

heaves 
Wearily back his head, to blink once more 



30 



Youth^s Pilgri?nage 



The fervor of the sun. Blue gaunt and old 
He stood. His rolling eyeballs could not wink 
Their matted coverlids; the flowers would fold 
And fade he looked on. From their dooms ashrink 
He hunched to the bleaker wall ; the door gaped 

black ; 
He stared with cunning lurch; peered in; leaped 

back; 
Then sidelong through the gate with hideous slink 

Made passage to the dark. . . . The gazers 

shifted 
Slow sated eyes, now left, now right; the hill 
In Youth's smooth slumbers lay ; a grass blade lifted 
Sharply with sputter of dew ; the whip-poor-will 
Had cadenced in the tw^ilight; not the stirring 
Of one slow slender leaf forbade the purring 
Of sorrow searching waterfalls, that still 

Monotonous music forth and solemnize 

The vespers of the violet. Like a flower 

Unfolding sudden fragrance to the skies. 

Or jasmine wooing night moths to its bower 

By odorous magic of its suing breath, 

The woman rose, and murmured, "Birth and 

Death — 
These hast thou seen, and now it is the hour 

31 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



When I am gathered to the hosts that throng 
High revels in the wilderness of night, 
And greet the passionate moon with Bromian song. 
So I must leave thee." Did his eyes invite 
The trembling challenge that her bosom gave? 
Or did her hurried breathings droop to crave 
Some sweeter surfeit of more dear delight? 

The wind with sudden gust unloosed her hair 
And bathed in fragrant folds his brow and eyes, 
And widening her loose robe, swept warm and bare 
Her throbbing bosom's fountained mysteries, 
Hungry for kisses, dimpling for the press 
Of fondling fingers, and the warm caress 
Of staining lips to bid the warm blood rise. 

Her hair was tingling round him and his brain 
Swam in a sea of passion, bold but blind. 
The blood was sighing in his bursting veins; 
And then she swayed and then their arms entwined ; 
The foison of her flaming womanhood 
Lay burning in his fingers. Through the wood 
No sound was ushered save the soothing wind 



32 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



Whose sobbing murmur sued upon his ear 
Pregnant with memory; and through the leaves 
The pines' sharp searching savor seemed to bear 
Reproach of sunny hillsides and the sheaves 
Of gathered daisies and the dappled lav^rn; 
Of rosy dancing feet that flamed thereon 
Leaping like sunlight toward the sinking sun, 
And pigeons cooing in the twilight eaves. 

"Oh God!" he cried, "My soul be master still!" 
Then caught a breath that drove the cooling air 
Deep in his fainting breast, like winter's chill 
Down riven to some sultry valley lair 
From heads of indistinguishable mountains. 
Whitening song to snow; joy's tressy fountains 
Knitting in pallid skeins of frozen hair. 

Feebly he faltered from the hot embrace 
And broke the cincture of her chaining arms; 
He spoke but dared not look upon her face 
Whose baffled blood took flight in mute alarms: 
And then shame's sluggish flood did stem, and start 
Back from the violation of her heart. 
And then fear whitened on each tender part 
Like swift snow rained from out a sunset storm. 

33 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



"Oh woman! woman! Help me to be strong," 
He cried with man's triumphant selfishness, 
"Surely in bliss so high there lurks great wrong 
For love should flame when bosoms bend and press ; 
This mutual joy welds like the tongues of fire 
Bodies and souls that mate in high desire 
And merge and meld in mutual tenderness. 

" 'Tis that not you nor I should aught profane 
This rite so hoarded through life's secret hours, 
But guard the vigilant fire of this fane 
And set its door in being's inmost bowers, 
So when the true high chosen acolyte 
Knocks at the last our clear joy may invite 
To share the untasted banquet of delight 
In innocence and beauty like young flowers; 

"Look, thou hast shown me Death; I found it wise 
Daring or hideous as men may choose. 
I gazed on Birth and wondered with wet eyes. 
And last I ken joy's clearest ray that embrues 
Love even, needing least, with deepest grain, 
Making soul manifest through murk and stain, 
But if the soul be banished shrunk or slain 
The hidden dearth betrays its paltry shows," 

34 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



The woman rose and hid her wounded eyes 
And bound her robe right stiffly cross her breast. 
These words she spake, "The innocence that lies 
Folden in flowers that the warm airs invest 
With tarnishing and little current gold, 
Crisps and grows countless when the clouds uprolled 
Blight and devour and the frosts come cold 
Out of the aging bosom of the west. 

"Then innocence chills to a frozen pride 

Like ancient blood that shirks the breeding soil, 

Or like the jeweled fingers of a bride 

Proudly aloof the murk of tainting toil. 

Then cruddled or grown swale when youth is done 

Grows to a thing that wise men smile upon 

But all men flee whose hopes it may despoil; 

"Joys too long hoarded when disclosed at last 
Are like fair apples garnered gainst the cold. 
Dearly held ofE till Autumn's need is past 
And Winter yields a shriveled few and old, 
Crabbed and bitter to the frozen tongue. 
Spend like a wanton then while lust is young: 
Time maketh chill the touch of gathered gold." 



35 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



She waited for no answer, but was gone 
Swift as a sigh amid the cleaving flowers, 
And left him deep disconsolate and lone 
To mark the droning passage of the hours; 
To call, until his throbbing heart was flung 
Into the panting fervor of his tongue, 
"Oh Rosabel, lie safe in Childhood's bowers 

"Cool innocence sway round thy mossy sleep. 
But dream of me, O love! Let memory 
Purge me in that clean fountain that doth keep 
The luster of thy warm virginity — 
Oh fair love, dream of me!" The searching cry 
Roamed through night's hollow chambers drearily. 
And the grey w^ll echoed "Dream, O Dream of me." 

"I have kept faith," he cried, "O Rosabel, 

With love, with thee; I care not if 'twere wise 

To leave joy's showered blossoms where they fell — 

The innocence of thine untutored eyes 

Is with me now. Aye, and my will shall keep 

Thy body from the license of my sleep 

Safe from my dream's despoiling ecstasies." 



36 



Youth's Pilgrimage 



A murmur thrilled the leaves even as he spoke: 
Swift feet pressed through the flowers, like a song 
Wooed from the gathered corn by the tender stroke 
Of Autumn's airy raiment, and along 
The hill path with soft whispers of his name, 
With call of reaching arms, a woman came 
And kneeling, sank before him with no shame. 
Crying, "Oh look on me, then be thou strong 

**In love as thou hast stalwart been in faith, 
If thou dost love." "Aye, girl, I love so well," 
He cried, "That thou seemest scarce such wind 

wrought wraith 
Of naked beauty even, this flesh fed spell 
Forms, from the lees of passion in my heart. 
Begone!" "Look once on me and I depart," 
She cried. He turned: her veiling hair did part 
And showed the kindling eyes of Rosabel. 



37 



Youth*s Pilgrimage 



Voiceless he gazed; then through the twilight dart- 
ing 
Timorous as a fawn she came ; the reach 
Of wide flung arms; a cry; the glad lips parting; 
A sigh like the sea as they melted each to each. 
They sank with mingled hair, the black and gold 
Woven like patterning moonlight on the old 
Dark floor of forests, and their souls impleach 
With fellowship of intermingled fate 

Like oak and ivy that have grown together. 

And make their gentle lives a single date, 

And bend or rise before the stress of weather 

As but a single being, neer apart. 

So these two lovers lingered heart to heart. 

At last she murmured, *'Love, no time shall sever 

"Lives knit by passion and through pain grown 

wise." 
His lips made answer, and they turned and slept 
Pillowed on clover heads. Their wearied eyes 
Were gauzed with trembling canopies that had crept 
Whitely from lily cups to shield their dreams. 
His arm now steals across her brow and gleams 
Slenderly pale as though the moon had kept 



38 



Youth^s Pilgrimage 



Her youngling out of heaven to ward their bed. 
Pale glow flys searched deep caverns in her hair, 
And for a cresset at his feet was shed 
Incense of lambent larkspur. Oh to share 
Those visions Youth! To drift with thee along 
The hyaline of sleep and heed a song 
That beckons with far call the fainting air 

Whose bosom is thy pillow! And to glide 

To shelves of moon bathed islands white with pearls 

New garnered at the sinking of the tide! 

To sluice my feet and count the scudding whirls 

Wherein the moon doth paint a thousand faces, 

To drain with thee sweet springs in shadowy places 

Whose canopies are rose leaves and the furls 

Of orchis, twined like crisps of golden hair 
Clipped from pink cupids on their christening morn, 
That mate each quivering star with one more fair, 
Skied in lone amethyst of dew drops born 
Hoarded from chrismal showers! Oh to drink 
Cool gulping in such solitudes and sink 
Dreamlessly into silence ere the morn! 



39 



